Posts Tagged ‘weight’

Levana Kirschenbaum, restaurateur, master chef, cooking teacher and author, has just published the ultimate cookbook, The Whole Foods Kosher Kitchen: Glorious Meals Pure and Simple. This is her magnum opus, a book that takes kosher cooking to a whole new level; with everything we ever needed to know about preparing healthy cuisine from soup to nuts.

Written clearly and concisely with Lisa R. Young, PhD, RD, a nationally recognized nutritionist, Levana’s new book guides you to eat your way to health with recipes that help you achieve a healthy weight, boost your energy level and keep you looking and feeling youthful.

In the spirit of full disclosure I must confess that in addition to being a good friend, Levana is also my culinary savior. In the midst of writing her new book she learned that I was diagnosed with a serious medical condition and graciously interrupted her busy schedule to turn my kitchen into a classroom, teaching me to cook delicious meals that were free of those dietary culprits– sugar, salt and fats.

How? By substituting healthy alternatives and incorporating often ignored natural ingredients like root vegetables into my culinary repertoire. Or as Levana describes them, “all those ugly, grimy, bulbous, monolithic roots–rutabaga, celery root, and turnips…what need do they have of looking pretty? They contain endless reserves of inner beauty and flavor and produce dishes much superior to the prosaic and humble sum of their parts.”

Peppered throughout the easy to follow and beautifully photographed recipes are “Lisa’s Tips.” Drawing on her vast expertise as a nutritionist, Miss Young weighs in on the medicinal and nutritional benefits of various ingredients including the common parsnip, rich in vitamins B and C and dark chocolate, a surprising source of antioxidants and polyphenols.

Levana traces her devotion to whole foods to her mother whose mantra, “The cure is in the pot,” fueled her philosophy of cooking as a means to healing. The operative word here is delicious as Levana proves that healthy never means boring or bland with recipes that the entire family will enjoy. Along with numerous sample menus including Asian, Latin, and Vegan dinners and a Dairy-free dessert party, she has included a valuable index of both gluten-free and Pesach recipes.

Here is one of our family’s favorites. Although I have been cooking chicken soup for over 40 years, it has been displaced by Levana’s Moroccan pea soup, the new Jewish penicillin. We all love it– from our granddaughter to her grandfather and everyone in between.

*Moroccan Pea Soup

Ingredients

2 large onions quartered

8 ribs celery, peeled and cut in large chunks

3 large carrots, cut in large chunks

1 pound bag green or yellow split peas, picked over and rinsed

1 large bunch flat parsley, stems and leaves

1 bunch cilantro, stems cut off

½ cup olive oil

1-teaspoon turmeric

3 quarts (12 cups) water

Salt to taste

Pepper to taste

Directions
Put all but last ingredient to boil in a wide heavy pot. Reduce the heat to medium and cook covered for about an hour or a little longer until the peas are very tender. Add pepper to taste. Cream with an immersion blender. Adjust the texture and seasonings. Makes a dozen ample servings.

In my last column I pointed out certain things people should – or should not do – to keep themselves and/or their loved ones off the Tehillim list. Of course, despite one’s best efforts, whatever Hashem has decreed will take place; yet, we are admonished to do our outmost to “watch over our soul.”To that end, we need to take precautions, educate ourselves and be proactive in taking the necessary steps to protect ourselves. Installing smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, putting up beeping motion sensors near swimming pools, learning how to swim – were some of the things to put on one’s immediate “to do list.”

Most importantly, people must get medical screenings in a timely and efficient manner. This includes blood work (to check for sugar, iron and cholesterol levels etc.), blood pressure readings, mammograms, colonoscopies and whatever else your physician recommends. Sadly, Tehillim has been said for too many people who postponed, delayed or simply never bothered to make the effort or time to get crucial medical examinations.

As I admitted in the column – I was almost one of them. Despite knowing better, I postponed, for three years, going to my gynecologist/GP for my annual checkup.

I want to point out that all my life I was pretty conscientious about getting a yearly physical – I even went to the dentist twice a year. But at that particular time in my life, I was figuratively bloated from years of having to eat the many negative comments and caustic criticism that were dished out to me by too many misguided individuals.

I was very reluctant and too worn out to face disapproval and censure from yet another source – even if it was for my own good.

My doctor was very “machmir” about maintaining a healthy weight, insisting that being overweight shortened one’s life. To that end he would gently but firmly chide his patients to lose their extra poundage. If the scale showed an increase from the previous weigh-in, he would show his chagrin over that unfortunate state of affairs.

I knew from looking in the mirror that he would not be pleased with the number that would come up on the scale.

(Ironically my weight gain may have been caused not so much by over-eating but by the extreme stress and distress that I had experienced on a long-term basis. Stress releases the hormone, cortisol, which can lead to increased abdominal fat,and suppressed thyroid function. (The thyroid regulates the body’s metabolism.)).

Not relishing a scolding, I did not schedule an appointment for three years – until I heard that a friend of mine had uterine cancer. I thought to myself, if a tzaddekes like her was not immune to getting a dreaded sickness, then a lesser creature like me surely wasn’t immune.

And so I swallowed my pride and scheduled an appointment with Dr. Ludwig. When he told me I could sit up, I silently breathed a sigh of relief that I would not have to pay a steep price for stupidly delaying my checkup.

But Dr. Ludwig, being very thorough, was not done. Part of the physical included feeling my thyroid to see if it was lumpy – a possible sign of a malfunctioning thyroid – and a possible cause of weight gain -or loss.

And the sigh of relief was aborted.

I was informed that I had a multi-nodular goiter, which means I had at least two lumps on my thyroid. Two or more lumps often are indicative of an over-active or under-active thyroid. A single lump is more ominous. Statistically only 5% of multi-nodular thyroids are malignant – meaning 95% aren’t.

Great odds – but I didn’t beat them. A follow-up ultrasound led to a biopsy and a diagnosis of papillary thyroid cancer. The good news is this type of thyroid cancer grows very slowly and is very curable.

However, even though thyroid cancer spreads slowly, after a while, even the turtle reaches the finish line and, had I kept on delaying my check-up – rationalizing “valid” excuses for not going – the cancer would have gone undetected, spreading and becoming more invasive. Eventually, I might have ended up on a Tehillim list.

As it was I had surgery – but no chemo. My treatment consisted of swallowing a radioactive iodine pill. Thyroid tissue grabs iodine – I visualize it as a magnet pulling metal – and cancerous thyroid cells not removed by the surgery are killed by the radiation in the iodine they hungrily absorb.

By Hashem’s grace, I never was ill enough pre-and post surgery and treatment to have Tehillim said for me. In fact, people in the Toronto community who know me are probably shocked by this cancer revelation. Even my parents did not know for five years. I was in the hospital for three days – a day less than maternity patients – and in the ensuing weeks, I wore a scarf or a high-necked sweater to hide the give-away U-shaped surgical scar on my throat.

I was very private about my situation because I didn’t feel like a cancer patient.

Honestly, giving birth was much more draining and painful. I never had any symptoms, or discomfort and I healed quickly. I actually thought they mixed up my test results and had mis-diagnosed me. It was like,” If I have cancer, why do I feel so good?” Based on what I saw at the hospital and in the community, cancer-stricken people whose bodies and souls were under brutal assault from both their malignant tumors and their treatments, I did not think I had the right to call myself a cancer patient. I felt like a fraud.

And truthfully, people view you differently when they know you have cancer. They simultaneously admire you for your “courage” or your bitachon or your “grace under fire” – saying they could never deal with it – but they pity you, they see you as a victim. And you make them think of their own mortality – and you become scary. I didn’t want to be unjustly labeled and mis-judged. I had already been down that road in my personal life.

It wasn’t until nine cancer-free years later – including the last four of those years being told I was cured – that I had to admit that perhaps I was a “member of the club” after all. I had a recurrence. The cancer was back.

I have been in the singles scene for a while and have seen many of my friends get married and many stay single. Of those who have stayed single, I have noticed commonalities among SOME of them, which could imply a bona fide pattern. The symptoms are:

1) Obsession with lofty spirituality. Many of these women unwittingly scare men off by flaunting said obsession on dates as a form of challenge.

2) Fixation with pristine perfection. Many of these women act as if it beneath their lofty dignity to stand in the presence of a man who has flaws. Many of them cannot psychologically handle the fact that many single men watch sports or otherwise fall short of their ideals. They deny their zero-tolerance attitude by saying things like, “I’m not too picky. I’ll date someone with divorced parents.” Or, “I am a realist. I understand that a man who is politically powerful in the community will not be the most involved parent.” These women often consider themselves realistic by agreeing to “settle” for someone who is less than phenomenally wealthy, handsome or otherwise high-status, while still running in horror from anyone with an actual imperfection.

3) Social gravitation towards rabbis, rebbetzins or other parent figures. Many of these women know the name of every maggid shiur in town and can converse intelligently about them. When in shul, they are often quicker to socialize with middle-aged mother figures than even single women their own age.

4) Overwhelming desire to idealize their spouse. Many of these women sincerely believe that they deserve a husband they can look up to with starry eyes. They cringe at the thought of being an equal, let alone an eizer kenegdo.

5) “Take care of me!!”- These women have a powerful need to feel protected from the ills of the world. They want a cushy life in an established community, with a house and a minivan, and do not feel bothered by the question of what they have to offer a man affluent enough to afford this, in return.

6) Dowdy physical appearance. Most of the women I am describing here are overweight, sometimes significantly, and commonly have easily curable physical defects like a huge nose. These women go through the motions of putting themselves together, often with a suit and flat shoes, but somehow do not seem to comprehend the importance of looking young, pretty and feminine. When asked why they don’t wear more makeup or consider an updated hairstyle, some give answers like, “A nice boy doesn’t care about those things.”

Many of these women cannot fathom why a thinner, more glamorous younger sister is married to a sports fan with an entry-level salary, who sometimes misses mincha. They sincerely believe that they are worth better.

I have found that this problem tends to feed on itself, with the proliferation of shiurim, Tehillim groups and segulos for single women creating a sort of ghetto where single women with this syndrome can drive each other deeper and deeper out of reality. At a recent shiur for single women (in which a speaker from Israel instructed the girls to automatically break up with any man who uses the Internet), I was shocked to find that quite a few of the girls had weight problems and almost none of them were wearing makeup.

I have found that the extreme emphasis these women place on segulos, brachos parties, and extremist interpretations of tznius only serves to raise the bar for the men they date, forcing said men to conform to the lofty la-la land they have created for themselves, possibly as a defense mechanism, in order to be considered “good enough.”

I welcome feedback to my letter which is written in the hopes of possibly shedding a faint ray of light on the enormous darkness which exists in place of an answer to the painfully burning question -

“Why am I still single?”

Dear Single,

Allow me to be the first to comment on your well-articulated and plausible critique of the single woman as you observe her, and to firstly suggest that girls with a diverse range of differences were always out there, though with perhaps less prominence than they are in today’s times.

Another thing to take into consideration: like gravitates to like, and the increase in the number of shiurim, Tehillim groups, etc. certainly helps to facilitate the meeting of like minds, on a much larger scale than ever before.

Additionally, trials and hardships have always been known to bring one closer to Hashem, so the upsurge in spirituality – whether in the form of revamping tznius guidelines or reviving old segulos – should come as no surprise.

As for the overweight and the plain-Jane unsophisticated types, they’ve been with us forever. Call it part of the multicolored fabric of society or attribute it to “different strokes for different folks” – either way, neither a weight issue nor a large nose seems to have hindered countless of singles from acquiring a spouse.

This is not to say that taking things to an extreme (as in the scenarios you so lucidly illustrate) is ever advisable or healthy (for marrieds or singles), but just to point out that one needn’t be slim, good-looking, levelheaded, or even down-to-earth with reasonable goals to land a suitable shidduch.

The key is in the word “suitable” – as in “s/he was made for him/her.” After all, it’s not as if there’s a proliferation of perfect young males having a hard time finding the perfect female (or vice-versa). Boys and girls alike have warts and idiosyncrasies that somehow suddenly don’t matter a whit when two souls predestined to be together discover one another.

Two indispensable components in finding one’s zivug (assigned to each of us long before we got to assert our individual characteristics): a dose of good mazel and siyata d’Shmaya. To that end, Hashem awaits our heartfelt prayers.

Thanks for sharing your thought-provoking perspectives with this column.

* * * * *

We encourage women and men of all ages to send in their personal stories via email to rachel@jewishpress.com or by mail to Rachel/Chronicles, c/o The Jewish Press, 338 Third Ave., Brooklyn, N.Y. 11215. If you wish to make a contribution and help agunot, your tax-deductible donation should be sent to The Jewish Press Foundation. Please make sure to specify that it is to help agunot, as the foundation supports many worthwhile causes.

Zenon Fernandez recently went to trial in Miami. A jury found him guilty of manslaughter with a deadly weapon. Fernandez had been shooting off a round of bullets to celebrate the New Year. His revelry was short-lived.

Fernandez fired into a discarded old couch that was by a garbage bin near his apartment complex. He did not know that an 11-year-old boy was hiding behind the furniture. The child was playing a game of hide-and-seek. He was hit by the bullets and bled to death. Fernandez never meant to hurt anyone.

Fernandez ruined many lives, including his own. He meant no harm, yet caused plenty. Reckless disregard for the consequences of our actions can and does have terrible repercussions.

Barbs can be lethal. They can come from guns and bows. They can also come from our mouths. Bullets and arrows can maim and murder. Words can ruin a reputation or destroy a friendship or kill a business deal.

Shooting off one’s mouth can be as dangerous as shooting off a round of ammunition and it really doesn’t matter if the shooter meant “no harm.” He should have been more careful.

We are told that to embarrass a person in public is a grave sin and that bringing blood to his face (making him blush) is tantamount to shedding his blood. Human nature makes it all too easy to disregard this warning.

The effects of our speech can be far reaching. A child disparaged by an impatient rebbe can turn away from religion. A teenager teased about her weight can develop a life-threatening eating disorder. An employee humiliated by the boss’s tirade can lose all confidence. We have all heard horrific stories of youngsters who have been bullied and taunted, and who, in desperation, commit suicide.

It is easy to blame Zenon Fernandez. His victim lay dead in a pool of blood. The injury of lashon hara (evil gossip) is on the inside. Its effects are not as easy to detect.

Yes, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can and do hurt me. We all need to be more careful and make sure there is no one in our line of fire.

Post-Pesach many of us begin making promises to ourselves in the hopes of looking and/or feeling better. Some of the most popular wishes people share with me include: Being stricter about eating habits, losing weight, going for a checkup/special exam, and here’s a big one, exercising!

So when clients ask me, “What should I do to lose weight/get rid of these thighs, stomach, backside/and feel good about myself and how I look?” one answer I give is, “GO NUTS”! Yes, literally! Proper snacking especially with such a nutrient-rich, heart healthy, incredibly satisfying, fun to eat, and not to mention delicious treat such as nuts, may be just the solution to your problem.

Now, it goes without saying that every individual is unique and has specific nutritional needs and hereditary predispositions, however the overruling perception that nuts are “bad” or are “soooo fattening” may not entirely be the case! While nuts are indeed a calorie-dense food, the good news is that studies have shown that people who consume nuts within moderation aren’t any fatter than people who avoid nuts. That’s because nuts are satiating, meaning they stick to you and help you feel “fed.” For example, a small closed-fisted handful of nuts (around 150 calories) for an afternoon snack often ends up being lower in calories than the 100-calorie pack of cookies that leads to another and yet another 100-calorie pack, because you are still hungry. Snacks like crackers, pretzels and rice cakes fail to keep you satiated because they lack the right amounts of protein, fat and fiber – which nuts have.

I discovered a fascinating study of adolescent students who took part in the “Family Lifestyle and Over-weight Prevention Program” in Houston. The teens were given a nut based snack after school to improve the quality of their diet: Nuts and peanut butter along with vegetables and fruits (such as apple slices or baby carrots with peanut butter, or trail mix with peanuts and dried fruit). These snacks replaced the popular chips, cookies and snack cakes. The results: these kids lost weight on the nut regimen and kept it off for longer than 6 months! Equally as important they LIKED the snacks. There’s no denying that a plain apple seems boring and may be unpopular because in and of itself it’s not substantial enough to satisfy afternoon hunger and cravings alone – but add the peanut butter and that apple becomes a yummy treat!

So, when the afternoon munchies strike, I invite you to “go nuts” and enjoy a handful of them. You may well discover you are less hungry for a longer period of time. While a few rice cakes may fill you for half an hour, the nuts may last 2.5 hours!

So why are so many people so afraid to eat nuts? A client once told me that she is afraid to keep a jar of cashews in the house because, “I’d end up eating them all and gaining weight!” So if you are afraid that the “handful” will turn into a “jarful,” portion it out in advance. And remember, the best way to take the power away from a so-called “trouble food” is to eat it more often, or sincerely KNOW that you can, even every day!

Now, some of you may be thinking, that’s not exactly how it works with me. That’s because when you over eat nuts (or any food for that matter) you think, “I just blew my (overly strict) diet by eating some almonds, so I might as well eat the whole jar to get rid of them, and then I can get back on my diet.” Or, you are at a social occasion and end up eating too many peanuts because you are starving or drinking and you may say to yourself, “This is my last chance to eat peanuts before I go back on my diet. I’d better eat them now because I’m never touching them ever again!” The best way to handle these diet-sabotaging thoughts is to change the way you perceive nuts and thereby your relationship with them as a food. Don’t deny, modify. While this may sound scary to overeaters, the reality is that after eating nuts for a few days you will find that you can cut back on them when you want to, without penalty!

So now that I may have convinced you to break out the nuts as snacks, you may be wondering, “Which nuts are best to eat?” That is kind of like asking, “What is the best fruit to have?” The reality is, aside from satiety, each type of nut offers its own special health benefits – and tastes good! Almonds have a little more fiber than cashews and per ounce you can have 28 vs. 23 cashews for about the same calories (170 calories). Walnuts have a little more polyunsaturated fat than hazelnuts and contain omega-3-fatty acids (great for your heart, brain, hair, eyes ). Peanuts have a little more vitamin E than walnuts, and pistachios are the lowest calorie variety with a serving size of about 30 nuts having just 150 calories. But no one nut is distinctly superior to another one. My advice: Mix them up! Choose a variety for the best nutritive, flavor, and health protective attributes!

So go ahead, for both health and weight management advantages, add a spoonful of slivered almonds to your morning oatmeal, afternoon salad or in your green beans at dinner! Don’t panic about the calories/fat. Remember, nuts are filled with nutrients that can easily be processed out of refined foods. Some vitamins and minerals include: magnesium, niacin vitamin E, copper, manganese, phytochemicals and even resveratrol (like in red wine!). Not surprisingly, people who consume nuts or peanut butter 5 or more times a week reduce their risk of heart disease or diabetes by more than 20%!

So kick up your heels and don’t be afraid to GO NUTS!

Rachael E. Schindler, Ph.D., MA, MS, CAI, CPT. Over 18 years experience in exercise physiology, Pilates, nutritional counseling and teaching, as well as multiple degrees in forensic and developmental psychology, come together to offer you the best of both body and mind. Specializing in food and behavioral “issues” for both children and adults, you get the right combination of diet, exercise and support all in one stop! Insurance is accepted. I can be reached at Teichbergr@aol.com, or (917)690-5097.

As I eyed the delicious, calorie-rich dessert buffet at a singles event I recently attended, I surveyed the crowd surging around me, and contemplated what, in the scheme of things was harder to do – lose weight or set people up. Both are very challenging, require a lot of “will” power – combined with tons of resolve, patience – and most importantly, “pep” talking.

But the answer is a no-brainer. Matchmaking is in a league of its own when it comes to expending effort, time, determination, and at the end of the day, overwhelming stress – whatever the outcome.

The fact is if you put in the “hishtadlut” – if you do the “research” as to what is right or wrong for you in terms of what you eat, and make the obvious choices, you will lose weight. There will be “light” (as in less heavy) at the end of the tunnel. Not so when setting people up. In most of your attempts to do so, the only “light” you will experience – despite your best efforts, and all your preliminary research – is the kind that burns you.

I know that I sometimes have a “hunch” that two people may be a potential match, but when all is said and done, the hassle of actually getting them to even meet leaves me feeling stressed and very reluctant to try again.

But I still do – or at the very least I let both parties become aware of the other’s existence and then the rest is up to them, or if they are very young, their parents. I do so for the same reason I imagine homeowners shovel the snow in front of their sidewalks, because it is the right thing to do. Because it may save a life – or in the case of shidduchim, help create a life.

The Torah teaches that when a life is saved, it is as if a whole world was saved, for the Torah has in mind the children, grandchildren and untold future generations who will come into being because of that saved life. I think of my own parents, a”h Holocaust survivors, whose survival has translated into numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren – the most recent one (my new grandson) just days old as I write this. Had they, like their parents and siblings and nieces and nephews succumbed, none of us would be here. Six million by now would likely have been 50 million – or more.

Not everyone has the z’chus to be in the right place at the right time – to save a life that is in danger. However EVERY Jew who is part of a kehilla, a community, IS in the position to enable future neshamas to come into existence. Every Jew has the ability – even the responsibility – to help ensure the continuity of the Jewish people. All it takes is a few minutes of thought, talking to friends and relatives – and a couple of phone calls or even e-mails. Simple, commonplace acts that can have such an amazing outcome – the creation of “worlds.”

In these days of intermarriage and zero population growth in the secular Jewish community, with Jewish continuity an issue, can we afford to be apathetic, too bothered or too jaded to help the singles in our community – whether never married, divorced or widowed – build a bayit ne’eman b’Yisroel?

While the process of introducing people to one another involves much trial and error – even some real whoppers, at least you know you made the effort – and who knows – the two mismatched individuals might even set each other up. Each new connection can open the door to a whole new set of possibilities.

If I make a suggestion and there is some reluctance to go out, I tell the “couple” that at the very least – even though on paper the other person might not be what they are looking for – e.g. the wrong hashkafa, she wants to make aliyah, or there is too much of an age gap – that it is still worth a few hours of their time to meet, because if nothing else – they might know someone from their own group of friends who might actually be their zivug. Increasing one’s circle of acquaintances, expanding your social network can only “frontfire” – as opposed to “backfire.” I know of a couple who realized early into their first date that they were not compatible but who suggested a friend instead – and two singles were transformed into a husband and wife.

It’s not easy to keep on dating – and it’s not easy making suggestions that very likely are long-shots – and could result in hurt or angry feelings – but who said it was easy to “create a world?” If it was as simple as not eating a piece of cake, there would be no “shidduch crisis” but since there is – let’s all make the effort to “gain” Jewish families.